Border wallTurkey completes half of its Syrian border wall

Turkey has completed more than half of a planned 317-mile wall along its border with Syria. The wall is not built as a regular wall would: It consists of portable concrete blocks, each weighing seven tons, placed next to each other. The concrete blocks are 6.5-foot thick at the base and 10-foot high. Each block is topped with three feet of razor wire. The government says the wall will improve security, but human rights groups warn refugees fleeing war will be tapped on the Syrian side.

Turkey has completed building 180 miles of the planned 317 miles security wall along its border with Syria.

The wall is not built as a regular wall would: It consists of portable concrete blocks, each weighing seven tons, placed next to each other. The concrete blocks are 6.5-foot thick at the base and 10-foot high. Each block is topped with three feet of razor wire.

Middle East Monitorreports that the Turkish army is in the process of erecting watch towers along the border, and also building dirt roads along the wall to allow for mechanized and foot patrols.

The wall is being built by TOKI, the large state-owned housing developer. TOKI’s director, Ergun Turan, said that the portability of the concrete blocks would allow Turkey to move them in the future when the security situation along the border improves.

The Turkish-Syrian border stretches 566 miles, and Ankara is especially concerned with growing role of the Syrian Kurds in the fight against ISIS. The Syrian Kurds are led by the YPG militia, which is a sister organization of the PKK. The PKK is a Turkish Kurdish militia which, since 1982, has killed 42,000 Turks in its fight for Kurdish autonomy. Turkey, the United States, and the EU have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization, and Turkey is worried that a YPG-controlled autonomous Kurdish region in Syria would embolden the PKK in its fight against the Turkish state.

Human rights groups have expressed their concern that the wall, unless it is accompanied by a no-fly zone along the Turkey-Syria border, will trap Syrian civilians fleeing the bloody conflict in Syria, leaving them exposed to the Assad regime’s air attacks.